Wiping data from a hard drive.

[Jordon Bedwell]

  On 8/25/2010 4:51 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:
> A few days ago I 'lost an HD which is 11 months old - and it still has 4
> years of warranty remaining.
>
> However, the HD contains personal information which means that I will
> simply put the sledge hammer to it - unless I can wipe the HD clean
> before I take it back for replacement.
>
> Since the HD doesn't spin-up, I cannot use the normal data destroying
> programs to wipe the data.
>
> When we were still using 3 1/4 and 5 1/2 inch floppies I had a powerful
> magnet thingie which would wipe a floppy clean (but I don't have that
> 'thingie' anymore, in anycase it would probably be too weak for a 500GB HD).
>
> I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how I can wipe the data off
> the HD?
>
> Would taking it to a wrecker's yard and putting it under the magnet they
> use to lift car bodies do the trick, for example?
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
> BC
>
Your best bet is to simply pull apart the HD and destroy everything.  
Bending is also your best bet during destruction.  You can always raise 
it above it's curie point, but considering each HD manufacture is some 
what unique in it's materials it's not feasible to calculate the curie 
point unless you are destroying truly sensitive data.  You could degauss 
it, but using the wrong degauss could leave magnetic remnants which you 
obviously don't want.  Since I don't know how the magnets at a wreckers 
yard works and if you even have control over that magnet, I can only say 
it could leave some remnants, but it could just be strong enough to mess 
up the alignment especially if you have some control over the magnet.  
You could always play manly and just put it through a tree shredder.   I 
guess, by  theory, if you could find a company in your area that has an 
oven that can go above 1200 degrees you might be able to reach the curie 
point, depending on what metals it has; for example some cobalt metal 
mixtures would need above 1200 degrees bulk curie but some cobalt metal 
mixtures only need as little as 140 degrees.